Morality Play Making

Extract

A Play whether moral or otherwise is a plot, an action in which one human force is pitted against another to culminate in victory or defeat. It is not a reality of human ambition, joy of suffering, but a figure, a picture, a statement of it, a thing made for presentation by actors to an audience. It is, therefore, conditioned by the language, knowledge and experience of those for whose delight or instruction it is performed. Not only each word and action but all costume, properties, lighting and scenery should be designed to develop or explain the plot. The author, the producer and the actor must know why a character is “garbed in black tights, dull red jersey and black cheese-cloth veil,” or in khaki and a steel helmet; why the Lighting plot is for “Red and blue Foots and Borders” at the rise of the curtain; and why a Castle of the World is made of silver blocks in the form of a triangle.